


As Night Follows Day

by marginalia



Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: F/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-06-07
Updated: 2003-06-07
Packaged: 2018-10-06 23:04:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10346598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginalia/pseuds/marginalia





	

When Cate was four, her father traced her shoulder blades through the cotton of her yellow and white party dress. "Someday soon, Catie, you're gonna fly!" She giggled, hugged him tight, chubby arms around his neck, then ran back down the hill, tripping through the long grass, arms stretched straight out from her sides, airplane noises buzzing through her lips.

He had meant it, though, and a few months later her mother started paying special close attention to her shoulders, rubbing salve into them after baths, and then, so slowly she didn't even know quite when it had begun, she had little nubs of wings, covered over with downy white feathers. "They'll get color when you're older, Catie," her mother said one day when she found Cate industriously coloring over feathers with her yellow crayon.

"What color will they be?"

"That depends on you. While you're little, they'll change slowly, like the sky. But someday they'll stop changing."

"I don't want them to stop! I want them to be ev'ry color!"

"I know."

.:.

When Billy was six he dreamed of a girl with golden hair. She lived in an upside down and backwards land, where she played while he was sleeping and dreamt while he was awake. She lived on the bottom of the world, and he was always secretly afraid that she would fall off, tumbling down into the deep dark of space, until one day when she asked him if he could keep a secret. Billy thought he could, and when she showed him her wings he thought they looked like pale pink spun sugar, and he told her so.

"They're not pink!" she snapped, and if she had been a boy he might have argued but she was not a boy and so he apologized and agreed that they were not pink.

"Well, d'you want to touch them?" the girl asked, seeing Billy's index finger snaking out in spite of himself. He looked down at his hand, startled.

"I won't hurt you?"

She looked at him, indignant. "Course not. I'm strong." The wings flapped and the girl rose a foot in the air, then settled back down again. He reached out and petted them hesitantly, as though they belonged to an animal which just might bite at any moment. "See?" she said, but he wasn't listening any longer.

.:.

When Cate was ten, she fell. Her muscles faltered and she drifted down to the earth. Down, and kept going, as the foundation of her world slipped away from the demands of her flailing limbs. _He's gone home_ , her mother's whisper pushing her down, ending her daylight dreaming.

Cate pulled herself up and folded herself away.

.:.

When Billy was fourteen, he knew why the girl had gone. In the night he finally understood, catching the faintest wisps of her hours-past dreaming, but in the mornings, he walked the dirty streets to school, a world apart, and convinced himself that he'd made it all up. Invented her from whole cloth, the pink and golden girl who talked like no one he'd ever heard.

A dream.

.:.

When both Billy and Cate had begun making jokes about their age, they found each other again. Later, they couldn't remember how. A cast party? A mutual friend? In line at the cinema? But the how didn't matter. Only the fact of the meeting. The fact of them. Inevitable.

They met, hands reaching blindly, fingers weaving, continually closing the distance. The distance shorter, but no more bearable for that.

When they made love, the wings curled around as a shelter. When they fucked, they beat relentlessly, set the rhythm, cooled the sweat.

They spoke, slowly, musically, reveling in the other's accent. He questioned her, not how, or why, or if she'd stay, just . . .

"Why does no one else see?"

"People just see what they want to. What they expect. Who expects to see a girl with wings? Just . . ."

"The boy who dreamt her."


End file.
